1960's - 1990's: Mighty Star Plush Toys

  

Here's my collection of giant Mighty Star plush toys from the 1970's and 80's! At the far left is Pink Panther (39 inches tall) and in the center is Bugs Bunny (38 inches tall)! Porky Pig was made by Ace in the 1990's (30 inches tall). 

Bugs and Pink Panther were made with a wire frame inside to kept them standing up. Often people will bend the arms and legs of these jumbo plush toys to pose the figures but this actually damages them. It's difficult to get the wire frame back to normal after it's been bent, so if you have one of these, never bend them or change the pose from the original way they were made.

I absolutely love these giant cartoon character plush toys and always wanted to collect them! In 2018 I found Bugs Bunny at a thrift store for a whopping $8!!! I actually let out a little scream when I saw him because I've been wanting one of these for so long! LOL I spotted him across the store and ran over to grab him before anyone else could. I was with my boyfriend at the time and he just looked at me like I was a little bit nuts. LOL To be fair, he's not wrong! You have to be a little bit nuts to want these giant plush toys in your house! At roughly 3 feet tall each, they take up the same space as a small child!

Shortly after, within about a month or so, I found Pink Panther at another thrift store for $14!!! I couldn't believe my luck that I had not just found one, but rather two of these giant guys for such an amazing price in such a short period. In all the years that I've been thrift store hunting, basically since the early 90's, I only found one of these giant plush toys before and regretfully had to pass on it which I've been kicking myself for doing ever since. So I'm very glad to have found these guys! 

Even though Porky Pig isn't made by Mighty Star (he's made by Ace) when I saw him on eBay I couldn't pass him up! I paid a tad more than what I got the other two for combined, but considering how rare this Porky plush toy is I think I did well just to find one.  Unfortunately his jacket is made out of a fake leather type of fabric that has begun to break down, so the surface of the jacket is now in delicate condition. Otherwise all three of these guys are in really nice shape for their age. 

Here's my 18 inch "Taz" the Tasmanian Devil plush toy by Mighty Star. The jumbo sized Taz plush plush is 30 inches, so even though this 18 inch one is a large plush toy it's still too small to match with the three jumbo sized ones above. I like that they gave him red ears! I found this Taz plush at a thrift store in the early 90's so I've had him for quite a long time now! I like the older style of a manufacturing that was used to make him. He's also stuffed with tiny Styrofoam balls which is typical for plush toys from the 70's

His eyes, irises, mouth and teeth are all separately cut out felt shapes that are glued on. The teeth are vinyl rather than felt. The white tag on his side, shown below, says 1971 but he was likely made after this in the early to mid 1970's. 

This is the white tag which all of the Looney Tunes Mighty Star Plush toys have. I think it's awesome that Looney Tunes plush toys used to be made in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. That's partly why I like to collect Mighty Star plush toys.

Here's where they attached the white tag and the blue tag on Taz, plus you can see his tail!

Mighty Star made a huge collection of cartoon character plush toys, mostly Looney Tunes but also Hanna-Barbera and other characters, beginning in the 60's right through to the early 90's. They were originally made in Montreal Canada, but at some point the fabric shell of the toys were sewn over seas and then they were stuffed in Montreal. Eventually however, the entire production moved overseas. Ace toys took over the Looney Tunes license in the mid to late 90's from Mighty Star and marketed several giant plush characters that Mighty Star didn't make, including Porky Pig. 

Curiously enough, Mighty Star made all kinds of smaller and medium sized plush toys of Porky, and he was included in their series of Looney Tunes hand puppets, but for some reason they never made a jumbo sized plush toy of him. The same thing also happened with Daffy Duck and Foghorn Leghorn, both of which Ace made as jumbo plush toys. I've seen both of them on eBay but they were a tad pricey for my liking. The Foghorn Leghorn jumbo plush by Ace is quite huge!!!

Speaking of hand puppets, in the 1960's Mighty Star made the Winnie the Pooh hand puppets and plush toys that were sold by Sears stores.

In the 70's Mighty Star made three different sizes of plush toys based on the New Zoo Revue children's TV series. Above is a Freddy Frog plush toy that is about 15 inches tall. A plush toy of Henrietta Hippo was also made. Both characters were made as 9 inch plush toys as well as jumbo sized. The "F" on Freddy's shirt is cut out of felt and glued on.

Here is a front and side view of the 18 inch Pink Panther by Mighty Star. The white Mighty Star tag has 1964 on it as the date but this toy would likely have been made after that in the mid to late 60's. Both the white and blue tags have Montreal Quebec as the location for the Mighty Star company. This Pink Panther was likely made as a carnival prize as it's stuffed with tiny Styrofoam balls. Usually, carnival plush toys were stuffed with Styrofoam balls while plush toys sold through retail stores were stuffed with a softer material.

I like how each of Pink Panther's eyes are made with three separate pieces of felt, yellow, black and pink, that are simply glued on, and then a shiny vinyl black dot is glued on as the iris. These types of eyes were later replaced with plastic ones, as seen on the giant plush toy at the top of this page.

Mighty Star made quite a few characters in the jumbo size, between 30 to 38 inches,  however many of them are hard to find or rare. The Looney Tunes jumbo series includes: Bugs Bunny (38 inches), Sylvester the Cat (38 in.), Wile  E. Coyote (38 in.), Road Runner (30 in., rare), Yosemite Sam (30 in.), Pepe Le Pew (30 in. hard to find), Speedy Gonzales (30 in. hard to find), and "Taz" the Tasmanian Devil (30 in. this is the most common one to find). Hanna-Barbera characters were available in large size as well, including Yogi Bear, Scooby Doo, Huckleberry Hound, and Captain Caveman. However, as I recall the most popular jumbo plush toy in the 70's was Pink Panther.

Plush toys of the common characters, such as Bugs Bunny, Sylvester, Coyote, Pink Panther and Taz, can be found with numerous production variations. The plush toys made in the 1990's were often completely redesigned from their 1970's counterparts. The type of fabric that was used also changed a lot as fake fur fabric was a relatively new invention in the 1960's. It took some time before a good quality, inexpensive fur fabric was developed that did not shed the fur, and this did not happen until the mid to late 60's. A longer plush fur fabric was not available until the early to mid 1970's, which changed the plush toy industry quite significantly. Mighty Star was one of the leading plush toy companies of the 1970's partly because they moved quickly to take advantage of this new innovation.

Here's a very strange early Tweety plush toy from the 1960's or 70's in florescent yellow which I think is hilarious. I just love the shape of this plush toy, it makes me laugh, especially the back view shown below. It's the shape of Tweety's head that is so funny! LOL There are no tags on this 11.5 inch plush toy and it doesn't look like any have been cut off, however it is definitely a Mighty Star plush toy. I found him at a thrift store in the 90's. 

Again the eyes are several felt shapes glued together, and the beak is also felt. Four pieces of yarn were added for Tweety's hair. Tweety's feet are supposed to be orange and much larger. Mighty Star updated the feet for later versions of their Tweety plush toys. However, Mighty Star never made a jumbo version of Tweety that I know of. Ace later made a jumbo Tweety in the 1990's.

The 10 inch Biker Taz plush from 1987 and the 9 inch Tarzan Taz plush from 1993, by Mighty Star. A 9 inch Biker Taz plush was also made with lighter brown fur. I bought this Biker Taz brand new from the store when I was 15 years old! The rest of these Taz plush were found on eBay.

In the late 80's and early 90's Taz became extremely popular with his own cartoon series and video game. As a result Mighty Star made a wide assortment of Taz plush toys based on a whole variety of themes. I have a few of these in my collection and I'm always on the hunt for more of them.

The 10 inch Tennis Taz plush from 1988 and the 9 inch "Love Machine" Taz plush from 1989, by Mighty Star. Both still have their original hang tags. This Tennis Taz plush is wearing a white tank top that says "Don't Mess With Me!" I've also seen the Tennis Taz wearing a white short sleeve tennis shirt with a collar. There were numerous Taz plush made with tank tops that had different sayings on them.

Other 9 or 10 inch Taz plush include: Bedtime Taz (with a red nightgown and cap), Hercules Taz (in gold wrestling tights with a large black studded belt), Summer Taz (with yellow sunglasses and multicoloured shorts), Taz with red backpack, green straps, Taz wearing a teal shower cap and a light blue towel that says "Shower me with love", Taz as Santa, Taz in a light green tank top that says "Life is a beach" and wearing green patterned shorts and matching bandana, Taz with a leather jacket that has a brown fur collar with a red bandana, and Taz wearing red boxing gloves and red shorts with a blue waistband.

Variations of the 9 inch Speedy Gonzales plush toy by Mighty Star. The one on the left is from 1980 and the one on the right is from 1990. The left one has a darker yellow hat, a smaller tuft of hair, and lighter pink on the inside of his ears. It also has a small bag of beans inside the bum, while the other one doesn't which makes the left one slightly heavier than the other. The corners of the mouth for the left one are glued on felt details while the right one has the corner of the mouth stitched on with black yarn. The hang tags are also different.

Beep Beep! Mighty Star's 18 inch Road runner plush toy made in 1989. There is a jumbo plush Road Runner that is 30 inches but it's a rare find. Road Runner was a popular character in the 60's and 70's however Mighty Star's version of the character looked pretty bad (it was very off model) until it was updated in the 1980's. A later version of Mighty Star's Road Runner plush has the character wearing sneakers so that the toy can stay standing up better than the version shown above.

Page posted on Sept 29, 2024

Last updated Sept 29, 2024

Photos and text copyright Mikey Artelle, 2024